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The State of Connecticut have released their withholding tables for 2012. These lookup tables allow you to verify employee wage withholding against any computerized payroll computations. CT tax statuses A, B C, D, and F are included as well as weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly wage payment periods.

The Hartford Courant is reporting that over 700 Connecticut employees contacted the state to ask why their December 2011 tax withholding was incorrect. Apparently this widespread issue is due to the state attempting to apply some retroactive tax adjustments to worker’s pay. The reason so many are experiencing issues in December is automated payroll systems miscalculate income tax owed when workers have either overtime pay, a Christmas bonus or a buyback of unused sick days.

Provided your pay is regular each period the Connecticut withholding tax tables appear to work just fine. When payroll is different weekt to week (as may be the case with vacation or holiday pay or year end bonus) then the CT Withholding tables (provided by the state) may inaccurately withhold too much.

According to the Courant:

Because the increase in state income taxes began in August, but was retroactive to the beginning of the year, state income tax withholding is designed to both take out the right amount for the current pay period and for the first two-thirds of the year. But when employees have higher pay than usual, many payroll systems assume they’ve been earning that amount all year.

Even the state of Connecticut had overwithholding issues, with Department of Transportation workers after Tropical Storm Irene. The state did not make a fix to its software, because the same thing happened again in December, for corrections officers who received holiday pay and overtime.

“Those employees have been refunded where possible,” said Tara Downes, spokeswoman for the state Comptroller.

The good news: no worker, no matter how plumped up his check is with overtime or bonuses, will see this glitch starting Sunday. That’s because the systems will no longer be trying to calculate retroactive withholding.

From their site:We collect information about your usage of the software program, the hardware used to run the program, and statistics about your company. We also collect the serial number of your product so that we can identify trends over time for a given installation. We do not collect financial information from your company information. For example, we may be interested in how many Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 customers use “Enter Cash Receipts” versus “Apply Payments and Memos”, but we will not collect any information contained in the individual transactions.

Examples of the data collected:

What version of Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 is installed?

What auditing features are enabled?

How often is the “Shipping Data Entry” screen used?

How many transactions are in the system?

What is the serial number of the product being used?

What is the operating system running Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200?

Does the company use finance charges?

We are interested in aggregating usage data so that we can identify areas of the program that we need to improve. We may also use the information we gather to create offers that suit your individual needs. As we continue to gather and analyze data, we may change the types of data we collect to better achieve the goal of improving our products and services. Those changes will be transparent and will not affect your work.

How often will I be sharing this anonymous information with you?

We anticipate that the information will be shared once per day.

How is data sent and stored?

All information will be sent automatically via the Internet. Once you join the Product Enhancement Program you don’t need to do anything else. Data transmission takes place in the background, without disturbing your current tasks, and should not affect the performance of your computer. Data is encrypted during transmission using SSL and is stored securely. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.

Will you be sharing this information with other companies?

Sage will use this information for internal purposes only.

How long will the Product Enhancement Program run?

The program will run indefinitely or until you choose to discontinue participating. To opt out of the program, please click Product Enhancement Program from the Administrative Tools menu. Once the study has been turned off, no more data will be collected or sent. You can join or drop out of the program as many times as desired.

Here’s The Step-By-Step Instructions To Opt-Out From The Sage Product Enhancement Program

First, login as Administrator (if you don’t have your password for this — contact your Sage Business Partner or Sage Software 800-854-3415).

Second, from the administrator screen select the last option “Sage Product Enhancement Program – Change your Participation In The Program”.

Finally, remove the check mark next to the participation.

Note: At this time it appears that you must opt-out each time a product update is installed as some users have reported that when they install the product update they find that they have re-enrolled after specifically opting-out.. Tested installing Sage ERP MAS 90 v4.50 PU2 after opting out on PU1 and the Opt-Out for PEP remained (as it should have) after the PU update.

The Internal Revenue Service issued interim guidance to employers on informational reporting on each employee’s annual Form W-2 of the cost of the health insurance coverage they sponsor for employees.

The IRS emphasized that this new reporting to employees is for their information only, to inform them of the cost of their health coverage, and does not cause excludable employer-provided health coverage to become taxable; employer-provided health coverage continues to be excludable from an employee’s income, and is not taxable.

The Affordable Care Act provides that employers are required to report the cost of employer-provided health care coverage on the Form W-2. Notice 2010-69, issued last fall, made this requirement optional for all employers for the 2011 Forms W-2 (generally furnished to employees in January 2012).

The IRS provided further relief for smaller employers (those filing fewer than 250 W-2 forms) by making this requirement optional for them at least for 2012 (i.e., for 2012 Forms W-2 that generally would be furnished to employees in January 2013) and continuing this optional treatment for smaller employers until further guidance is issued.

Using a question-and-answer format, Notice 2011-28 also provides guidance for employers that are subject to this requirement for the 2012 Forms W-2 and those that choose to voluntarily comply with it for either 2011 or 2012. The notice includes information on how to report, what coverage to include and how to determine the cost of the coverage.

The 2011 Form W-2, prior IRS Notice 2010-69 deferring the reporting requirement for 2011, and Notice 2011-28 containing the new guidance are available on IRS.gov.

Instructions on how to implement the Employer-Sponsored Health Care reporting on the W-2 form within Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 payroll is available here (requires Sage login first to http://na.sage.com/log-on).

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